AKA “Adlay” or “pearl barley”, though not a true barley. This is one of the wildest plants we’ve ever grown! This soft-hull variety grows like a grass or miniature corn (to about 2 feet), then produces little pearls or tears near the top of the stem. Known and used as a hardy food grain, medicinal, craft bead, and beer ingredient at least back to 3000 BC in Southeast Asia, making it one of the oldest grasses in cultivation. The ‘tears’ on the hard-hull variety were dried and used for Buddhist rosaries in Japan, clothing and necklaces in Thailand and Myanmar, and bead curtains in the Philippines. The Zomi people had a specific festival, “Miim”, wherein the beads were used to pay tributed to the departed souls of the dead. Still eaten as a cooked grain, dessert, tea-like and beer-like beverages, and cereal in many areas of Asia, where it is used in many of the same ways as rice and does not have to be polished like rice, keeping its many nutrients intact (more fat, protein, and calcium than rice or wheat). Cooked grain is chewy, mildly sweet, and earthy in flavor, gluten free, and easy to cook with. Great to add texture in soups or porridges. Also a traditional medicine, it has been used for hay fever, high cholesterol, cancer, warts, arthritis, obesity, and respiratory tract infections.